Little Richard, Tutti Frutti | Throwback Vibez 🕶️🎶

In the 56^th edition of Throwback Vibez (2024), we recollect and reflect on “Tutti Frutti” by the late, great Little Richard. 

The vibes, the vibes, those Throwback Vibez 🕶️🎶! Throwback Vibez 🕶️🎶 is a column that celebrates awesome songs from the past.  The records that grace this column are older, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re ancient – no fossils 🦴! All genres of music are welcome. In the 56th edition of Throwback Vibez 🕶️🎶 (2024), we recollect and reflect on “Tutti Frutti”, performed by Little Richard.

“A-wop-bop-a-loo-bop-a-lop-bop-bop.” Word, Little Richard (1932 – 2020), word.  The iconic, flamboyant, late singer/pianist delivered a song for all-time with “Tutti Frutti” which graced his 1957 album, Here’s Little Richard.  The nonsensical opening lyrics are part of the charm of arguably his most famous record. The phrase means nothing – completely made up on Richard’s part – but to this day remains ear catching.  Of course, those are the less shocking lyrics from this highly entertaining, vintage rock/rhythm and blues joint.

“Tutti frutti, good booty / If it’s tight, it’s all right / If it’s greasy, it makes it easy.” Um, Little Richard, say what? Were you… referencing anal sex 🫢? Booty, tightness, and greasy (aka lubricant)… speaks for itself. He was gay, but had a lifelong struggle with sexuality and religion – something many members of LGBTQ+ can relate to, at least at some point in their journey. He even made it clear on Letterman he wasn’t gay anymore. Those lyrics, of course, are much gayer and spicier than the 1950s would ever allow, so, the ripe innuendo of “Tutti Frutti” would be censored.  He penned the exuberant joint with Dorothy LaBostrie.  The seminal lyrics known and love that made the final cut were, of course, “Tutti frutti, oh, rooty.” Much more conservative, and the 50s were an ultra-conservative time.

The chorus is the centerpiece.  And, it goes without saying, Little Richard had a humongous personality as well as a sensational voice.  In the verses, any traces of gayness evaporate.  “I got a girl named Sue / She knows just what to do,” he sings in the first, following up in the bridge with, “She rocks to the east, she rocks to the west / But she’s the girl that I love the best.” From Sue, we get Daisy in the second verse, whom Richard proclaims, “She almost drives me crazy,” and adds, “She knows how to love me, yes, indeed.”  The tongue-in-cheek 50’s classic “Tutti Frutti” may have had to be toned down – stripped of its rainbow sensibilities 🤭 – but it remains one of the most fun, infectious, and timeless classics of all-time.

Little Richard // Here’s Little Richard // Craft Recordings / Concord Music Group, Inc. // 1957

Little Richard, Tutti Frutti: Throwback Vibez 🕶️🎶 No. 56 (2024) [📷: Brent Faulkner / The Musical Hype; Craft Recordings / Concord Music Group, Inc.; OpenClipart-Vectors, Speedy McVroom via  Pixabay]